THE SCREEN IN REVIEW; Akim Tamiroff Plays Several Roles in 'Magnificent Fraud' at the Paramount-- 'This Man Is News' Is New Film at Criterion

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That wasn't a riot in the Paramount yesterday; it was Akim Tamiroff playing several different roles in "The Magnificent Fraud." Magnificently, too, did Mr. Tamiroff play them, tearing off and chewing placidly before the startled eyes of the customers great indigestible hunks of scenery. Yes, Mr. Tamiroff is an actor; give him a putty nose and he will strut like Cyrano; equip him with an expanse of brow and a drooping forelock and he will make you think of Napoleon. But through all these changes, alas, he continues to talk like Tamiroff—that is, in a formidably mongreloid accent which is neither Provençale, nor Corsican, nor Latin American (as the present situation demands), but purely and simply Akim.Moreover, with no intention of belittling, we must add that, although the fugitive actor Mr. Tamiroff plays before the cabal compels him to impersonate the deceased Presidente is known as the man of a thousand faces, it is at least a noteworthy circumstance that all of the faces bear a striking family resemblance to Mr. Tamiroff's. However, it is essentially the accent which betrays Mr. Tamiroff's little gallery of impersonations. So distinctive is it that it is no wonder if Mr. Tamiroff succeeds in imitating it perfectly when he finally comes to impersonate the Señor Presidente, since that dignitary also was being played to the hilt by Mr. Tamiroff up to the moment of his untimely liquidation by a bomb on the eve of the big American loan.In fact, considering the number of people played by Mr. Tamiroff, it is hard to justify the presence in the cast of any one else. But the price of admission also includes Lloyd Nolan, Mary Boland, Patricia Morison nd Steffi Duna, which is to say, naturally, that the price is not exorbitant. In the item of Miss Morison alone the glamorizing agencies of Hollywood have prepared an extraordinary bargain. It is possible that, even in a mood of midsummer tolerance, you will not be taken in by "The Magnificent Fraud," but when the smoldering Miss Morison bursts into flame even at the kiss of Lloyd Nolan, boy! What will she do if they ever give her a role opposite Gable?

THE MAGNIFICENT FRAUD, screen play by Gilbert Gabriel and Walter Ferris based on the play "Caviar for His Excellency," by Charles G. Booth; directed by Robert Florey; produced by Harlan Thompson for Paramount. At the Paramount.Jules LaCroix . . . . . Akim TamiroffPres. Don Miguel Esteban AlvaradoSam Barr . . . . . Lloyd NolanMme. Geraldine Genet . . . . . Mary BolandClaire Hill . . . . . Patricia MorisonHarrison Todd . . . . . Ralph ForbesCarmelita . . . . . Steffi DunaDuval . . . . . Ernest CossartGeneral Gomez . . . . . Robert WarwickSenor Mendietta . . . . . Frank ReicherDr. Diaz . . . . . Donald GallaherCastro . . . . . Ernest VerebesMorales . . . . . Robert MiddlemassJune . . . . . Barbara PepperSecond Blonde . . . . . Virginia DabneyLittle Old Man . . . . . Edward McWadeAmerican Business Man . . . . . J. TannenLatin Business Man . . . . . N. PaivaIt has almost become axiomatic, thanks to Hollywood, that an American newspaper reporter should be a veritable devil of a guy who puts his feet on the managing editor's desk, blandly insults the old boy, knows and sasses all the high police officials and turns in eight-column headline "scoops" on the slightest provocation. That is a type we have been forced to endure.But when our British newspaper cousins, who have always been far superior because they call themselves "journalists" and speak with a lovely Oxford accent, start behaving the same way, only worse—as they do in "This Man Is News," the English-made farce-melodrama now at Loew's Criterion—then it is time to throw down the marbles and impatiently mutter, "Aw, drupes!"Granted "This Man Is News" does have a certain bantering quality which makes almost bearable a silly story about a gay reporter who gets involved in a murder business. Granted it does have Valerie Hobson as a delicious thing to feast the eyes upon, and Alastair Sims hamming away as a managing editor with all the exaggerated "takems" of a Keystone cop. A picture would have to be brilliant to put across such an insufferably flip news-hawk as the one which Barry K. Barnes archly plays. And brilliant is not the word for this one—or for Barry.

A version of this review appears in print on July 20, 1939 of the National edition with the headline: THE SCREEN IN REVIEW; Akim Tamiroff Plays Several Roles in 'Magnificent Fraud' at the Paramount-- 'This Man Is News' Is New Film at Criterion. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe